


being to timelessness as it's to time

by fragileanimals



Series: love is the air the ocean and the land [1]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragileanimals/pseuds/fragileanimals
Summary: Time had begun for her, as all of this had, with a man and a watch.





	being to timelessness as it's to time

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the e. e. cummings poem of the same name, which you can read [here](http://gladdestthing.com/poems/being-to-timelessness-as-its-to-time). I highly recommend it! 
> 
> Also, thanks so much to my babe [anneweaver](http://archiveofourown.org/users/anneweaver/pseuds/anneweaver) for beta-ing/holding my hand/generally supporting me emotionally.

 

 

 

 

 

What is alive and what isn’t and what should we do about it?   
Theories: about the nature of the thing. And of the soul.  
Because people die. The fear: that nothing survives. The  
greater fear: that something does.

RICHARD SIKEN

 

 

 

Time had begun for her, as all of it had, with a man and a watch.

 _It’s a watch. It tells time,_ he had said to her in the blue-flickering cave, but she had not understood. Her concept of time as it passed had been vague on Themyscira; she had lived millennia as though they were days, and days as though they were hours. Because death had not been present on their island of paradise as long as Diana had been alive, the Amazons had not feared the end of time. There existed no sense of the finite.

For this reason, Diana had not grasped time as a concrete limitation until she had seen it at work in Man’s World. And work it had: from train schedules — those strange graceless horses — hanging heavy on brick walls to giant grandfather clocks in London shops that sang the hour in mournful tones, the mortal world had borne witness to the ways seconds, minutes, and hours commanded life. The corresponding desperation it had invoked had set her teeth on edge.

 _But who does it tell, and of what?_ she had asked him, later, staring at the shiny glass face. _What is the meaning of the name?_ she had wondered aloud, as he’d wrapped the leather band around his wrist. _Does it watch, or is it watched?_

 _Well, uh. Both, I guess,_ is all he had said, scratching at the back of his neck. It had been clear he did not possess the answers she sought, and eventually, slightly dissatisfied, she had been forced to let the subject drop.

Mere days later, at the end of his life, Steve had taken her hands in his and wished for more time. But it had been only as she’d watched him run toward the plane, numb to all sound, that the realization had come to her: marking time spent with another could be, among other things, a measure of love. When the sum of a person’s hours were limited, it mattered desperately how they were spent; to spend even a few moments with another was to, in a sense, grow older with them, to tell them they were valued.

By the time she had fully understood, had looked down to find his timepiece heavy in her palm, it had been too late. She had been only able to watch as the plane grew ever higher, every second a heartbeat.

In the near-century since, however, Diana has become accustomed to time. She has grown comfortable with it, living both within it and apart from it, this steady stream of years. She has known the sorrow of it, of watching her friends slowly grow old and fade away— yet she has also known the joy of it, each new life in those same years a balm for her losses.

Above all, time is a balance, she has found.

In this way, she has become what she once could not comprehend: a timekeeper. As one impartial to time, she alone bears the responsibility of being the watcher, rather than the watched. As a guardian of the realm of men, it is her solemn duty to observe, to study and analyze her landscapes and then tuck away each new event into her eternal memory, as though waiting for someone to approach her and ask.

When she closes her eyes in the dark, she knows exactly who it is she is waiting for, but also that he will never come back.

Diana, God-Killer and Princess of Themyscira, has since birth been timeless, but only in Man’s World does she truly feels outside of time.

 

 

_(LOVE DID NO MORE BEGIN THAN LOVE CAN END)_

At Steve’s body-less funeral, Etta Candy had stood at the front of the church, making no attempt to disguise her red eyes and a sniffling nose behind the delicate white handkerchief clutched in her palm. By this time, Diana herself had long since cried all her tears, and was left only with an ache in her chest that threatened to swallow her whole— but still she had admired the dignity with which the other woman had held herself, even in her tears.

Illuminated from behind by a large pane of stained glass, Etta had read only one simple verse from a worn Bible, one that had brought Diana comfort in her grief—

_Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints._

On Themyscira, they did not have saints. It had been explained to her, however, that in the Christian tradition saints were holy people, selfless, close to God in thought and deed. They were not gods themselves, but were revered nonetheless by people of faith.

And Diana did not know much about this particular God, but she was certain that to give up one’s mortal life, as Steve had, to save those of countless innocents must surely be a just cause for veneration. And, if Etta, a woman she trusted absolutely, believed so steadfastly that Steve was safe in her heaven, how could she not also have faith?

Charlie had been uncharacteristically quiet during the whole affair. As far as Diana could remember, he hadn’t uttered a word beyond the church doors— though he too had stood to speak of Steve, upon getting up to the pulpit, he hadn’t found the proper words. He had returned to his seat with his head hung low, looking for all the world like a kicked dog.

Sammy too had worn a face more serious than she had ever seen on him, barring the moments immediately after Ares’ demise. For once, he too had been at a loss for words, had simply placed a hand on her shoulder. _May God have mercy on him,_ he had said to her, in Arabic, knowing she would understand, _and make him enter His vastest paradise._

Paradise, Diana knew something of. She had been born there, grown up in it, surrounded by peaceful sky and glittering water. If the afterlife was anything like that, anything at all like Themyscira, she hoped Steve would find it; her only regret was that, this time, she would not be the one to usher him in.

Finally, there had been Chief. It was so strange, how these people who had known Steve so much longer than she, better, even, had felt the need to come to her to offer condolences, and not the other way around.

Nevertheless, she was grateful when he said, in his quiet way, _My people would say his soul has traveled East._ He had approached her after the service, when everyone had been milling around in the churchyard, aimless and bundled in their coats. _To the Sand Hills._

Diana had been slightly surprised by this revelation. _Would he be welcome there?_ she had asked, before she could stop herself. _Even after his people have taken your land?_ She had not forgotten his words at the Belgian campsite.

Chief had been silent for a few moments, thoughtful. Then, _He was my friend,_ is all he had said.

Later, alone in the churchyard, face-to-face with the freshly-cut headstone, Diana had offered up a simple prayer of her own.

 _Uncle,_ she had thought, turning her face to the winter sun, pressing her hands to the frozen ground, _Polydegmon, Aides, if you still live. I ask that you see his spirit to Elysium._

It might have been nothing, but a moment later when the wind had stirred the dead branches on the trees, it had sounded like her name.

 

 

_(WHERE NOTHING IS TO BREATHE TO STROLL TO SWIM  
LOVE IS THE AIR THE OCEAN AND THE LAND)_

Sometimes in her dreams, he drowns.

Sometimes, she does; or, she gets as close to drowning as an Amazon can— her lungs fill with water as she watches the sun grow dim and blurry, sinking toward the heart of Gaea. In her dreams she sits on the rocky bottom, useless in her heavy armor, sees the plane crash into the ocean over and over again on an endless loop. She can see Steve less than a hundred paces away but cannot stir her muscles to action.

She wakes up choking.

Sometimes, though much less frequently, Hypnos is kind. He takes her instead to the beach, her beach at the edge of Themyscira, and leaves her kneeling over the first man she had ever known, and in this dream, there are no Germans. There is only the two of them and the warm sand and the sky, wide-open with possibility. She touches his cheek and he wakes, coughing up water that glows a brilliant blue.

She still wakes up with a wet face, but for an entirely different reason.

 

 

_(DO LOVERS SUFFER? ALL DIVINITIES  
PROUDLY DESCENDING PUT ON DEATHFUL FLESH)_

As Diana had watched her remaining friends slowly age and become decrepit, it had not been lost on her that Steve, had he lived, would still eventually have left her. It had crept up on her, the knowledge that even if he had been so lucky as to cheat death that day in the plane, he could not have escaped it forever; he would have met the same fate as the others— that eventual ceasing of mortal life, of mankind.

On her worse days she wonders if she could have borne it, watching him grow old while being herself eternal. Watching him live inside of time and die a slow death, over years, over decades.

And yet: she is simultaneously more than certain that even if she could not have borne it, she would have found a way to live with it regardless. Knowing what she knows now, she would have given anything for that time, even if it would still have come to an end.

Diana sees now that she had only been playing at mortality, before. When she had first landed in London, traveled to Belgium, she had mimicked without understanding. In Man’s World she had been a pretender; she had not yet experienced loss, and she was apart from death, so she had not known what it was to be human— the good bits and bad, the fatality especially.

When she had crossed No Man’s Land, she had known herself only as _Princess,_ not _God-Killer,_ and yet it had not occurred to her to fear for her own life. She had feared for those in her company, surely, all of those easily-broken men, but not for her own, because it simply had not occurred to her that she could die. She had been convinced of the necessity of her mission and of her ability to complete it, and it had carried her through: to kill Ares was to end the war, to end the corruption of mankind, permanently. Thus she would fulfill her Amazonian duty— she could not die before that, at least, was complete.

Of course, it had not been that simple. It had never been that simple, but she had been too naïve to see it with Steve at her side, gunmetal and hope.

Without him she is cast adrift in a sea of years, battering the waves of self-doubt and disappointment with growing cynicism. She, who had once thought misanthropy limited to the mortal strain, is finding it increasingly difficult to find a reason to remain in Man’s World, especially after it had become apparent that Ares’ death had only marginally curbed man’s appetite for cruelty. It had been painfully clear, especially after the Second World War, that with time they only became better-dressed savages.

So the question Diana face now is: what becomes of a god who loses faith?

 

 

_(ARE LOVERS GLAD? ONLY THEIR SMALLEST JOY’S  
A UNIVERSE EMERGING FROM A WISH)_

When they had left Themyscira they had navigated with the stars.

This had been a source of excitement for Diana, who had been taught since youth to find her way below the heavens, but had never yet had real cause to test her knowledge: the island was only but so large, and to sail beyond the perimeter of their god-sent haven would have been unthinkable.

She had quickly found, listening to him talk, that though the Amazons and the world of men had different names for the constellations, often the stories were merely variations on a theme; Cassiopeia, the vain and beautiful queen, Cygnus, the swan, Lyra, the harp of tragic Orpheus were only a few of the accounts shared between her people and his.

 _So you do know our history,_ Diana had said, curiously.

Steve had squinted in the dark, shifting his head against the rough fabric pallet. _Well,_ he had started, slowly, _yeah, but we didn’t learn it so much as history, as much as we did, uh. Myths, and stuff. You know, stories._

Diana had laughed at that, loud and self-sure. Imagine thinking the gods myths. What arrogance. But he would see, she had been sure, when they got to the war, when they found Ares, he would see the gods did not belong in dusty tomes. He would see that they still breathed— some of them, anyway.

With an index finger strong and sure, Steve had outlined the shape of Cetus, the sea monster, in the sky far above their heads. He had liked that story in particular when he was young, he had told her then, his expression more than a little sheepish.

 _Why?_ she had asked, propping herself up on one elbow to better see into his face. _Were you not frightened?_

 _It was mostly the saving-the-princess part that I liked,_ he had said, a hand awkwardly at the back of his neck. _You know, being the hero, getting the girl, and all that._

 _Being a spy,_ she had asked, frowning, _that is not enough of the hero for you?_

He had shrugged, settling back, hands folded on his chest. _It’s not that. It’s just— different than what I had thought it would be._ Then, slightly self-deprecating, _I mean, for one, I never thought I’d be the one in need of rescuing._

 _Everyone needs to be rescued at some point, Steve,_ she had said, with a little smile, pillowing her head onto her arm. _It is nothing to be ashamed of._

 _Everyone except you, apparently,_ he had replied, with a smile of his own.

Years later Diana sits out on her balcony under the same stars, watching modern lovers dance and kiss and carry their children home on the streets below, knowing she will never be so lucky. Saving Steve it is not as simple as the death of a sea monster; if it were, she would have crossed the world to find and destroy it. But the painful truth is that she will never die and he will never live again, and no matter how many battles she fights or skies full of tears she sheds, he will never come back.

 

 

_(LOVE IS THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES,  
THE HOPE WHICH HAS NO OPPOSITE IN FEAR)_

The first and only time Steve had told her he loved her, she had not said it back.

In fact, she hadn’t even heard him. The noise from the constant explosions had muffled her senses and made everything come up garbled, as though through deep water, and she hadn’t had the presence of mind to read his lips until after he’d gone. So, when he’d stood before her for the very last time, grasping her hands in his, she hadn’t had the faintest idea what he’d been trying to say.

Words hadn’t been necessary, however, for her to know he had been afraid— it had been written in the lines around his eyes, in the way his hands had shaken even through the thick gloves. She had not known the source of his fear, but it had bled into her anyway, traveling in her veins like ice as he had tried to tell her where he was going and why she could not follow.

It was a feeling she had not known until Man’s World had breached her own.

From the moment she had seen his plane explode high above the tarmac, it had not let her go. Even after she had killed Ares, righting the world as best she could, it had clung to her, an uneasy companion. And, while it does not command the entirety of her life, fear rouses her still, in the night, forcing her out of bed with cold fingers around her throat.

Some days she can hardly face it, the creeping dread that after everything, Steve’s sacrifice, Antiope’s death, the slaughter of _millions,_ the human race might still not be saved. Might not even be _worth_ saving. Some days she wonders if she herself had brought this destruction down on her loved ones; she thinks, impossibly, that if she had only listened to her mother, if she had stayed on Themyscira, they might still live.

Those days make it hard to carry on, as a one-woman island in a sea of time. She would much rather spend them curled up on the couch in her apartment, reading Alcman or Sappho and nursing self-pity, than cataloguing lost civilizations she isn’t sure anyone cares to remember anyway. It is on these days that she feels closer to bitterness, anger, even, than she ever does; she feels like throwing up her hands and traveling back home to her mother’s arms, abandoning the world of men to its well-deserved fate.

But then, invariably, on her walk home through the _Jardin des Tuileries,_ a lover kisses his girl on a public bench — with that shy soft touch that means only the two of them exist right now in the world — or a father buys his daughter ice cream from the stand, lifts her high on his shoulders so she may see above the crowd, and it strikes Diana like lightning: _this is why._

This is why she stays— she stays because, for every cruel and unusual act inflicted on one man by another, there is another borne of love to balance the scales in humanity’s favor. For every heinous attack there is a responding groundswell of goodness, to bolster the ones in need and lift them toward the aid.

And Diana’s entire purpose has always been to _be_ that aid. To be the guardian of men.

She is reminded of how Steve’s words had come to her in the midst of her despair just as she had needed them, the sky bright over her head.

 _They are ugly, filled with hatred, weak, just like your Captain Trevor,_ Ares had said, vicious and cutting. _Look at her,_ he had said, indicating the groveling Dr. Poison. _She is the perfect example of these humans, unworthy of your sympathy in every way._ But he’d been wrong.

He’d been wrong, because he hadn’t heard Steve’s last words, the ones that had given her the strength she had needed to end Ares’ rule, once and for all. _It has to be me. It has to be me,_ he had said, and it had gone against everything her brother would have had her believe; Ares’ mankind would never have risked life and limb where it could have been avoided. Ares’ Steve would never have gone up in that plane, knowing death was imminent, when Diana had protested.

But he had. And in doing so, he had proved that mankind was better even than she could have believed, and that it deserved at least a chance, free of its shackles, to be more.

So, though Man’s World is not her world, it is Steve’s. As such, she will continue to pour the love she had had — and still has — for him out into it, because he had believed in it, had believed in her ability to save it. To leave now would be to abandon all she has left of him, as well as his belief.

 _Make it count, Diana,_ she thinks, watching the people pass her by, completely innocent to all she has known and seen. _Be worthy of his sacrifice._

Love had been enough, a century ago. It must still be enough now.

 

 

_(THE STRENGTH SO STRONG MERE FORCE IS FEEBLENESS)_

Steve comes back on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day, one hundred years to the day he died.

It happens like this:

By evening of the anniversary of his death, Diana is so tired her body aches down the length of her spine. She hasn’t slept well in days, she never does, even after a century, as the calendar approaches Armistice Day.

Still, she refuses on principle to take the elevator.

By the time she reaches her floor, which is numbered very nearly in double-digits, her shoulders are drooping ever so slightly. She imagines this is what aging naturally is like: the weariness, the feeling that with one wrong step, one’s bones will crumble into dust.

Diana is tired. Diana is beyond tired, she’s _exhausted_ deep down in her bones; she wants nothing more than to shuck off her work clothes, make a cup of tea, and collapse into a dreamless slumber. She had worked all day to stave off the sadness, the loneliness threatening to engulf her, to pull her below the waves.

Had Etta and the others still been alive, she would have spent the day with them and had at least a little distraction. There would have been stories told, old and new, photos of new children or grandchildren passed around, and no shortage of drinks had, particularly on the part of Charlie and Sammy. And, if she or Etta had appeared melancholy enough at the memory of Steve, Charlie might even have sang.

This year, Sammy’s great-granddaughter had offered to have her over for tea, but Diana simply hadn’t had the heart. Not only would it not have been the same, regardless of the girl’s good intentions, but also she feels it is penance now to spend the day alone. As the only surviving member, she is the memory-keeper of their little group. She is the watch.

So she arrives home, weary and very much alone.

Later she’ll blame it on the exhaustion, that she fails to notice until she’s fitting the key in the lock that the door’s already open.

Only slightly cracked, not gaping wide, practically imperceptible to the casual observer. But open nonetheless.

Her primary feeling is annoyance, the immediate suspect being Bruce— Barry’s always had enough sense to close the door after himself. Bruce, she thinks, leaves it cracked on purpose.

With a sigh, she pushes the door open, walks in.

 _Hello?_ she calls, voice stronger than she feels. _Who is there?_

No response. Could still be Bruce, he’s notoriously tight-lipped and mysterious, but her hackles are rising. Her hand twitches toward her sword which is, as always, tucked away in her oversized purse. She swears under her breath in a dozen languages.

In the hall leading to the kitchen, she catches a scent like a bloodhound. Pausing, she cocks her head, taking it in— pine trees and something else, sharp and faintly masculine. Aftershave, perhaps.

Not Bruce, then. He takes pride in his undetectability.

She sets her jaw, the furrow in her brow deepening further. Her blood thrums under her skin, readying her for a fight; she can feel the suppressed emotions of the day working their way into her chest, bubbling into anger. Who dares disturb her on this of all days?

She storms into the kitchen, one hand on her sword handle, the other on her keys.

And then she stops short.

She stops short because, as Sammy would say, _Et voilà, and here it is—_ he’s there, sitting at her kitchen table in his stolen German uniform, looking for all the world like he belongs.

As though it has not been, in fact, an entire century since she’s seen his face.

The word comes to her as gently as a whisper. _Skiá._ Her mother’s stories had told of them, these spirits of the dead and departed.

When he sees her, shade-Steve snaps upright, ramrod-straight, as though guilty. The chair knocks back against the floor with a screech, but Diana hardly notices. She’s paralyzed, keys gripped in her hand so tightly she can feel the grooves dig into her palm.

Then. _Uh. Hey, Di,_ the ghost says, and it’s his voice, _Steve’s voice,_ and her hand releases the keys without permission. They chime dissonantly against the floor, unnoticed and forgotten.

She opens and closes her mouth, searching for words, but none come. She just stares.

He is still dressed in his clothes from 1918, stolen German uniform and all. Despite the relative warmth of her apartment, he’s in his long coat with the wool-lined collar. In fact, he looks exactly as he had the last time she’d seen him, a century ago— sans the watch, of course.

She notes these details about his person because she cannot yet look at his face. It’s too bright, it’s too sudden, it’s like looking into the heart of a supernova, and she fears the fate of Orpheus— if she stumbles, if she looks back, his ghost will disappear from her forever.

 _Diana,_ he says, and all of the strength leaves her legs; she half-falls against the marble island, gripping the edge for support.

He crosses the room in two long strides, but then hovers by her side, unsure. His hands are at her shoulders, her arms, so close she can feel the warmth radiating off him— real, living warmth, but they do not make contact.

 _Look at me, please,_ he begs, and if her heart had not already been broken, this would have been enough.

 _I cannot,_ she says, voice trembling. Eyes on the floor.

The fact of the matter is: she has seen him before. She’s seen him dozens of times, on the street, on the metro, passing by an overlarge café window. It has happened many times before that a sharp jaw or a bright pair of eyes will catch her own, leaving her gasping, hoping—

But invariably, she turns her head and he is gone.

So he’s not real, this Steve. He looks like him, sounds like him, but he can’t be him. It is impossible, a cruel trick. The jealous gods do not give up their dead.

Still, when she feels a light sensation at her wrist, her eyes slip closed.

 _You kept it,_ the ghost says, a moment later. Sounding slightly choked, as he runs a thumb over the face of the watch. It has long since stopped ticking, but Diana carries it with her regardless, this memory of time.

 _Of course I kept it_ , she says, the words coming out unbidden. _I kept everything of yours._

After the Steve’s mother’s passing, she had received all of it, boxes of school papers and childhood drawings, his high school diploma and Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. It all sits, lovingly preserved as any artifact in a museum, in the guest room of her apartment.

Calloused knuckles brush the edges of her cheek, bringing her back. The familiarity of the feeling even after all this time sends her eyes flying open, landing, finally, on his. She finds them blue, so blue, just like the ocean, just like she remembers, that one blond shock of hair flopping over one eye.

How could a shade know his person so completely? How could an illusion play the part so perfectly, down to his very speech patterns, his mannerisms?

 _Diana, please,_ he says again, softer, and the dam breaks, she curls her fingers into the collar of his coat.

 _Steve,_ she says, and he’s in her arms.

 

 

_(THE TRUTH MORE FIRST THAN SUN MORE LAST THAN STAR)_

_Is this true?_ she asks, later, as they lie face-to-face in the shadow of the mahogany headboard. The moonlight cutting sharp lines over their bodies, his eyes flicker as she traces the lines of his choppy hair, remembering, memorizing. _Are you real?_ she asks, with his face in her hands.

 _Don’t I feel real?_ he asks, a question for a question. He props himself up on one elbow, a smile tugging at his mouth, and she thinks of their first meeting, that distant time and place. But instead of _Do I not look like one?_ present-Steve asks, _Are you real?_

She does not return the smile, her hands stilling in their course. _I do not jest,_ she says, a little wrinkle forming between her eyebrows, _Steve. Where have you been? How have you come back?_

The smile slips from his face. _I don’t know,_ he says. He ducks his head, as though ashamed, runs a finger down her palm, tracing the lifeline. _I don’t know anything,_ he says, slightly rueful. _I just… I was in the plane, and now I’m— Now I’m here. But, if you want me to go,_ he adds, hurriedly, turning his blue eyes on her again, _just say the word, and I’m gone._

She springs upright before he even finishes the thought. No, she says, grabbing his hand. At his startled expression, she amends, _Of course, If you wish to leave, I will not stop you. But please do not do so on my account. I—_ She breaks off.

 _I have missed you too much to lose you again,_ she doesn’t say.

She had thought, more and more with each passing year, that she had left her naïve faith and blind hope in the ground, with Steve’s empty coffin, where they had belonged; but now, she looks into his face and she’s the girl on the beach again, she’s the girl in the snowfall again, she’s the girl on the runway again, watching as the world shifts around her.

Steve lets out a soft chuckle. _All right, Diana,_ he says, curling a hand around the back of her neck, _All right. I’m not going anywhere, I promise._ He sits up halfway, then, casting his eyes around the darkened room.

 _What’s wrong?_ she asks, tracking his gaze.

 _Just looking for your lasso,_ he says, turning back to her, running a thumb along the shell of her ear. _So I can prove it to you._

The smile that blooms on her face is as slow-moving and radiant as a daybreak. It warms her from her inmost being outward, from her fingertips to her toes. _You do not need it,_ she says, simply. Tugging him back down to lie beside her, feeling his breath settle on her skin. _I believe you._

+

Long after Steve falls into a peaceful slumber, Diana lies awake.

They are physically wound around one another in a manner which says _intimate,_ which says _exclusive_ as well as _private,_ but it is a thrill of the purest kind to have him sleep beside her. Even in his sleep his lips form her name; she keeps one hand over his heart, so she may feel its steady if impossible rhythm.

Only when lightning cracks outside the glass does she drag her eyes from his face, turn her eyes to the window.

In a mere few hours, they will be forced to face the day. Diana has not yet called for a reprieve from work, so she must do that; Steve, in an ironic twist of fate, is now the one in need of clothes, of papers that won’t immediately reveal his status as a newcomer and a foreigner to the century. Because of his status as a man out of time, she should, with his consent, contact the Justice League. She should do all of these things, and she will.

But not yet. For now, for this brief time, he is hers and none other’s.

And that, certainly, is something to believe in.

_(—DO LOVERS LOVE? WHY THEN TO HEAVEN WITH HELL.  
WHATEVER SAGES SAY AND FOOLS, ALL’S WELL)_

**Author's Note:**

> Two things. One, I have no idea about the mechanics of Steve’s return, so let’s all just assume it’s something Zeus-related. Two, I wrote most of this before I knew Chief was a demigod, so you’ll have to forgive that inaccuracy, ah.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. As always, commentary and constructive criticism are highly appreciated, if you can spare the time! ♥


End file.
